GISMONDI, ENRICO. - Jesuit, orientalist, b. in Roma on 20 Apr. 1850, d. there on 7 Feb. 1912. Having entered the Society of Jesus in 1869, after completing his studies he went to Beirut in Syria, where he remained from 1879 to 1888 (apart from an interval of one year spent at Manresa) as professor of theology at the University of S. Giuseppe, while at the same time applying himself to the study of Oriental languages. He subsequently went on to teach them at the Gregorian University in 1888, where he also held the chair of biblical exegesis. From 1910 he also held the chair of Oriental languages at the Biblical Institute. He was consultor to the Congregation of the Index and to the Biblical Commission, and contributed articles to several Roman periodicals.
Original works: The Bible and Greek Wisdom (Roma 1894); Linguae Syriacae grammatica et chrestomathia cum glossario (there 1900); Disciplina linguae Hebraicae (there 1907); Linguae Hebraicae grammatica et chrestomathia cum glossario (there 1905). Latin translations: Ebed-Jesu Sobensis carmina selecta ex libro « Paradisus Eden » (Beirut 1888; with the Syriac text); S. Gregorii Theologi liber carminum jambicorum (there 1896; with the Syriac text); Maris, Amri et Silbae de Patriarchis Nestorianorum Commentaria (3 vols., there 1896–99, with Arabic text).